Book Review: Scandinavia since 1500 by Byron J. Nordstrom

182
The view often expressed in newspaper cartoons of the period, for
instance, is heavily racist and publicly anti-Slav, -Italian, -Greek,
-Pole, -Jew, -Black, and -Irish. But did Scandinavians in general, and
Swedes in particular, fall into this category, as well? O n this point the
available evidence is mixed. This is due in part because, until re­cently,
much, probably most, of the available documentation con­cerns
rural Swedish America. Considering where most Swedish Ameri­cans
actually lived, however, there is surprisingly little about Swedish
immigrant life in the city. U l f Beijbom's dissertation, Swedes i n C h i ­cago
(1971), and S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n Life i n Chicago (1992) and Swedes
i n the T w i n C i t i e s : I m m i g r a n t Life and M i n n e s o t a ' s U r b a n F r o n t i e r (St.
Paul, 2001), both edited by Philip J. Anderson and Dag Blanck, are
among the few major studies of this group. There is a reasonable
amount of statistical information about Swedes in cities, but the
anecdotal evidence that gives life to numbers is in short supply.
We may ask if one can use fiction to study history and the answer
is clearly yes, within limits. The chief expectation of such a use of
fiction, however, is that it be representative of the time in which it is
written. In the case of the novels at hand, they must succeed as
fictions, and Dams has no other intentions. There was, of course, a
real Swedish-American detective, Valdemar Torsell (1849-90), of
enough fame in 1880s Chicago to be known after his death as the
Swedish-American Sherlock Holmes. But that, as they say, is another
story.
ALAN SWANSON
UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN
Nordstrom, Byron J. S c a n d i n a v i a since 1 5 0 0 . Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2000. 393 pp. ISBN: 0-8166-2098-9. $29.00.
Americans of Scandinavian descent and others interested in the
history of the five countries of Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Ice­land,
Norway, and Sweden) have had few books to turn to in order
to gain a thorough overview of the political, economic, and cultural
developments that have shaped this region of northern Europe. The
183
area has been of limited and often idiosyncratic interest to scholars
outside Scandinavia, and the literature is characterized by a few very
good books and monographs clustering around a limited range of
themes. A side-effect of this benign neglect is that what has been
written is often quickly out-of-print, and then available only through
large, regionally-based inter-library loan systems. The last serious general
history of Scandinavia was T. K. Derry's A H i s t o r y of S c a n d i n a v i a,
published in 1979.
Rectifying this dearth of readable and available histories is Byron
J. Nordstrom's S c a n d i n a v i a since 1 5 0 0 , published last November by
the University of Minnesota Press. Written by a professor of history at
Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, it will go a long
way towards filling this unfortunate gap.
The audience for this new history is primarily the undergraduate
student attending college or university in North America or the
United Kingdom. Others who will benefit include serious lay persons
who need a relatively brief background on a corner of the world that
receives little of the world's attention, mostly because not much bad
news comes from there. Blessed with a comparatively mild climate
and geography (no monsoons, earthquakes, or floods to interrupt the
evening news), the countries of Scandinavia—or Norden, as Nordstrom
rightly prefers to call the region—have enjoyed for more than a
century the benefits of standing on the fringes of most European great
power conflicts and an unprecedented prosperity that is the envy of
almost every other region of the world. A region famous for Nobel
prizes, cradle-to-grave social welfare, and unerringly polite political
discourse does not clamor for the world's attention. But its story is
well worth reading.
Of course, Norden has had its share of ruinous warfare, economic
disasters, and foolhardy political perambulations. It just seems that
Scandinavians have put much of that behind them. Both Sweden
and Denmark have historically tried to play larger roles on the stage
of European history, with Swedish military incursions as far south as
Prague during the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and Denmark's sev­eral
"minor" wars against the Prussians during the middle 1850s. The
Nordic countries have their own sorry history of colonialism and
oppression to live down. (Denmark was a not-insignificant player in
184
the slave trade until around 1800 and continued to operate slave-based
plantations on its Caribbean islands until the middle of the
nineteenth century.) But Norden's history during the last half-millen¬
nium has been mostly the story of the quiet progress of five small
national entities from feudalism to modern wealth and stable politi­cal
democracy.
Nordstrom's task, to write a brief but scholarly, complete narra­tive
covering five hundred years in five countries, is daunting. As a
modern historian, he is not satisfied to note merely the military
battles and diplomatic permutations in each of the five countries. His
purpose is to try to cover the diplomatic, cultural, economic, social,
and scientific, leaving no major aspect of national evolution behind.
For example, there are periodic "sidebars" that comment on the
historical changes in the status of women, a population segment too
often ignored in previous historical survey literature.
The book is comprehensive, rich in detail, and tells a good story.
With so much to cover and so much to digest, the reader may be
allowed an occasional "slow down" as he or she tries to assimilate the
mass of data such a broad subject area and time frame encompasses.
Taken as a whole, Scandinavia since 1500 is an admirable accomplish­ment
and a valuable addition to the library of anyone wanting to
learn more about how this region of the world has developed the
high standard of living and civility that most parts of the world can
only dream of.
CHRISTOPHER OLSSON
FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
SWEDISH COUNCIL OF AMERICA

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182
The view often expressed in newspaper cartoons of the period, for
instance, is heavily racist and publicly anti-Slav, -Italian, -Greek,
-Pole, -Jew, -Black, and -Irish. But did Scandinavians in general, and
Swedes in particular, fall into this category, as well? O n this point the
available evidence is mixed. This is due in part because, until re­cently,
much, probably most, of the available documentation con­cerns
rural Swedish America. Considering where most Swedish Ameri­cans
actually lived, however, there is surprisingly little about Swedish
immigrant life in the city. U l f Beijbom's dissertation, Swedes i n C h i ­cago
(1971), and S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n Life i n Chicago (1992) and Swedes
i n the T w i n C i t i e s : I m m i g r a n t Life and M i n n e s o t a ' s U r b a n F r o n t i e r (St.
Paul, 2001), both edited by Philip J. Anderson and Dag Blanck, are
among the few major studies of this group. There is a reasonable
amount of statistical information about Swedes in cities, but the
anecdotal evidence that gives life to numbers is in short supply.
We may ask if one can use fiction to study history and the answer
is clearly yes, within limits. The chief expectation of such a use of
fiction, however, is that it be representative of the time in which it is
written. In the case of the novels at hand, they must succeed as
fictions, and Dams has no other intentions. There was, of course, a
real Swedish-American detective, Valdemar Torsell (1849-90), of
enough fame in 1880s Chicago to be known after his death as the
Swedish-American Sherlock Holmes. But that, as they say, is another
story.
ALAN SWANSON
UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN
Nordstrom, Byron J. S c a n d i n a v i a since 1 5 0 0 . Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2000. 393 pp. ISBN: 0-8166-2098-9. $29.00.
Americans of Scandinavian descent and others interested in the
history of the five countries of Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Ice­land,
Norway, and Sweden) have had few books to turn to in order
to gain a thorough overview of the political, economic, and cultural
developments that have shaped this region of northern Europe. The
183
area has been of limited and often idiosyncratic interest to scholars
outside Scandinavia, and the literature is characterized by a few very
good books and monographs clustering around a limited range of
themes. A side-effect of this benign neglect is that what has been
written is often quickly out-of-print, and then available only through
large, regionally-based inter-library loan systems. The last serious general
history of Scandinavia was T. K. Derry's A H i s t o r y of S c a n d i n a v i a,
published in 1979.
Rectifying this dearth of readable and available histories is Byron
J. Nordstrom's S c a n d i n a v i a since 1 5 0 0 , published last November by
the University of Minnesota Press. Written by a professor of history at
Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, it will go a long
way towards filling this unfortunate gap.
The audience for this new history is primarily the undergraduate
student attending college or university in North America or the
United Kingdom. Others who will benefit include serious lay persons
who need a relatively brief background on a corner of the world that
receives little of the world's attention, mostly because not much bad
news comes from there. Blessed with a comparatively mild climate
and geography (no monsoons, earthquakes, or floods to interrupt the
evening news), the countries of Scandinavia—or Norden, as Nordstrom
rightly prefers to call the region—have enjoyed for more than a
century the benefits of standing on the fringes of most European great
power conflicts and an unprecedented prosperity that is the envy of
almost every other region of the world. A region famous for Nobel
prizes, cradle-to-grave social welfare, and unerringly polite political
discourse does not clamor for the world's attention. But its story is
well worth reading.
Of course, Norden has had its share of ruinous warfare, economic
disasters, and foolhardy political perambulations. It just seems that
Scandinavians have put much of that behind them. Both Sweden
and Denmark have historically tried to play larger roles on the stage
of European history, with Swedish military incursions as far south as
Prague during the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and Denmark's sev­eral
"minor" wars against the Prussians during the middle 1850s. The
Nordic countries have their own sorry history of colonialism and
oppression to live down. (Denmark was a not-insignificant player in
184
the slave trade until around 1800 and continued to operate slave-based
plantations on its Caribbean islands until the middle of the
nineteenth century.) But Norden's history during the last half-millen¬
nium has been mostly the story of the quiet progress of five small
national entities from feudalism to modern wealth and stable politi­cal
democracy.
Nordstrom's task, to write a brief but scholarly, complete narra­tive
covering five hundred years in five countries, is daunting. As a
modern historian, he is not satisfied to note merely the military
battles and diplomatic permutations in each of the five countries. His
purpose is to try to cover the diplomatic, cultural, economic, social,
and scientific, leaving no major aspect of national evolution behind.
For example, there are periodic "sidebars" that comment on the
historical changes in the status of women, a population segment too
often ignored in previous historical survey literature.
The book is comprehensive, rich in detail, and tells a good story.
With so much to cover and so much to digest, the reader may be
allowed an occasional "slow down" as he or she tries to assimilate the
mass of data such a broad subject area and time frame encompasses.
Taken as a whole, Scandinavia since 1500 is an admirable accomplish­ment
and a valuable addition to the library of anyone wanting to
learn more about how this region of the world has developed the
high standard of living and civility that most parts of the world can
only dream of.
CHRISTOPHER OLSSON
FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
SWEDISH COUNCIL OF AMERICA